Next Time You Buy a Whole Chicken, Make This

One of my favorite things to do is pick up a whole chicken at the butcher and ask them to chop it up and then make chicken cacciatore. Now chicken cacciatore is supposed to be a hunter style chicken. So what we're going to do today is we're going to bring the forest into your kitchen. So we have the whole chicken here chopped up. If you don't know how to do this, like I said, you can have your butcher chop it up in little pieces for you. And then we have some herbs, sage, rosemary, garlic. We left the garlic in the peel, a country mix of olives, carrot, celery, and onion. We left the leaves on the celery. Just get that all in there, chop it up. A little white wine, olive oil, salt, pepper, and that's it. So what we want to do today is we want to actually create a chicken dish that feels like it was made in the forest, right? By a hunter, not some fancy kitchen. So the first thing we're gonna do is heat up some olive oil and we'll start giving this chicken some color. And you want to go in skin side down, really hot pan, get that skin to crisp up. So this step really takes a few minutes. You really just want to build some flavor in the pan, get some color on the chicken. And once you peek and you see that, you know, your chicken has some color, we're going to flip them. But before we do, I'm going to add in the carrot, celery, and onion because when I flip them, I want these to go on the bottom. So we'll go in with the carrot, celery, and onion. And you can see by throwing the vegetables right on top, they go right to the bottom instead of trying to fidget them in there. And you can see this chicken really has some nice color in here. So now what we're going to do is we're going to let this side cook for a few minutes, the same time the vegetables are going to start soaking up some of that fat from the chicken and cook a little bit. So we'll give this side a few minutes. So this looks pretty good. Now we're going to go in with some white wine and I'm just using a half a cup of dry white wine. Get that in there. Now, while the wine is evaporating, we're going to go in with some aromatics and I have some sage, rosemary, and garlic. So I left the peels on the garlic just to give more of a rustic flavor in this. It's not overly garlicky, but it brings a hint of garlic in this. So we're going to let this wine evaporate. In the meantime, we'll season everything up with a little salt and pepper. And you can see that this is a really rustic dish. This is exactly what you want here. And we're just going to let the wine evaporate and then we'll go in with some boiling water. And as Jamie Oliver would say, get your kettle on. So this is nice and hot. We're going to go right in with this boiling water, save us some time. I have about a about a cup and a half in here. A lot of it's going to evaporate. So what we're going to do is we're just going to put this on low. We're going to let this simmer for about 25 minutes covered. So we have a little time here. This is going to cook for about 25 minutes. So I figured I'd share a little bit of what I know about chicken cacciatore. And there's two different types of chicken cacciatore. A lot of the American, what you see in America is the red version and it has tomatoes. And what we're making today is a white version, Bianco. And there's probably a hundred different ways of making each of them, but there's two. There's a white version and a red version. And I think that this particular version is probably the original, but tomatoes didn't arrive to Italy until a certain year. So I'm pretty sure they were probably making, you know, the hunters were probably making this version. And I also would probably go as far as saying that, you know, granted this is an Italian dish, but I think a lot of different cultures all over the world probably make chicken dishes similar to this, right? Because it's, you know, chicken. But I figured I'd throw that out there because a lot of people are, are used to the chicken cacciatore having a red color to it. And whereas this one is white. So it's Bianco. And I thought that was pretty interesting. I don't know. Maybe you guys have something you want to share, let me know in the comments. So we're going to let this cook. We have 25. Well, we've got probably 20 minutes now. I talked a little bit and then we'll add in the olives. I've noticed I didn't put the olives in yet. We're going to put these at the end. I want them to kind of keep their shape. So we'll let this cook for a little bit. It's time to check on the chicken. It's been about 25 minutes and you can see, we still have a lot of water left in here. That's good. So we're going to remove the rosemary and the sage. They pretty much did their job and you can see how much water is actually in here. And now the chicken is pretty much cooked. And what we're going to do is we're add in the olives. Kind of spread them out everywhere. And we just have like a country mix of olives here. Just like a mix of different olives. Definitely bring in that briny flavor. That's really what you want. You want that briny olive flavor to get in this pan now. And we're just going to leave this uncovered for about, I would say about 5-10 minutes and just allow some of that water to evaporate and allow the sauce to get nice and thick. And that's really it. It's a really easy, you know, chicken dish here. And we really bring in a lot of flavor really quick, which is why I think this is a really good one for like a weeknight dinner. It's quick. I mean, it's quick. I mean, it takes like, I would say it's a 45 minute meal, I would say from start to end. And it's good like if you're going food shopping, you just at the beginning of the week, just pick up a whole chicken, have the butcher chop it up. And then you know, you know, this is what I'm making for my family this week. So we're just going to let this blip a little bit, allow some of this water to evaporate. And then I'll show you what it looks like once it thickens up. So this is pretty much ready. You can see that we still have a little liquid left in this pan, but a lot of it really, you know, the fat from the chicken really rendered in here. And you can see that you're left with this glossy sauce that just covers all the chicken, which is exactly what you're shooting for. So this is where you really want to kind of time this dish out right so that you don't cook out the best part, right? The best part that you could dip your bread in. So we'll get this on a plate. I'll show you what we're working with. So we'll get all this chicken on this plate and probably could have used a bigger plate here. I mean, yeah, the smallest plate, but we'll get all this chicken on here. We have a whole chicken on this plate right here. And it just, you could see that there's a lot of flavor just kind of sticking to the chicken. It just looks so good. And now what we're going to do is we're going to put some of the, you know, the olives, the carrots, the onions, celery, everything, just get everything on top, pour over some of this juice, which, like I said, this is the gold here. And that's really it. So this is definitely like a plate that your family would definitely love. So this is like the best time making these videos, eating. And it's, I don't have a watch, but it's lunchtime. So we're just going to go in. I'm just going to go in with our hands, right? It feels appropriate for this type of dish. It's really good. It's so good. The flavors in here, the carrot, celery. It's like a couple different. Let me get some paper towels. You're going to need a lot of paper towels. The carrot, celery and onion has one, you know, particular flavor. And then you have the rosemary and sage and then the olives, which are like the wild card. But they all work so beautifully together in this. And it just came out so good. I think your family is going to love this one. It's definitely makes a nice family dinner. And you're probably wondering what to serve this up with. I would say, I say this a lot, but serve it up with just a nice loaf of bread so that you could kind of dip the bread in there. And that is it. So you put this on a plate, a nice big rustic loaf of bread and, you know, dinner set. And if you're looking for other chicken dishes, I have a chicken dish linked right here. This was my grandmother's recipe. It's really good. It's a one pan meal. I think it's got potatoes in it. So that one's also good, but definitely try this. And if you try it, let me know how you like it in the comments. And also if you make chicken cacciatore at home, let me know how you make it in the comments. I'd love to hear it. 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